Drowning in an ocean of organization

I am on vacation for the week and have been trying to take care of a few things that I have been putting off until I had "some time" to do them. As we all know that time never comes but organization is the theme for today.

On that topic I use a RSS feed reader to organize and track blogs and websites so I can keep up with their news. I use a combination of Google Reader when I'm away from the computer and FeedDemon when I am at home to track the “river of news” I want to stay in touch with.

Google Reader is actually a recent addition. One of the benefits is that I can catch up on the news via my phone or another computer. They also have some great recommendations for collections of feeds you can add, and that is where the problem has blown up recently.

My "organized" collection of sites was already in disarray when I started adding more which just exacerbated the problem. My collection of 500 newsfeeds from different blogs, news sites, video/audio podcasts, personal trackers, etc. has turned into a vast unorganized ocean where I never dip below the surface any more.

So today I started culling the collection down to a more organized flow. After 20 or so deletions I stopped myself to show you what insanity looks like in an opml file. It is 488 feeds of which I probably read 30-40 on a regular basis. (Ok… I’ll admit as I’m writing this I just added a few more feeds from Google Reader. Perhaps it is an addiction.)

My actual intention is to keep more news than what I can rationally read flowing through the newsreader. The filters will pluck out stories for me while another folder holds a select group of regularly read feeds.

The collection of feeds will be unwieldy even after I'm done, but hopefully it will be better organized so I can find what I want quicker without all the extra noise. If you have any tips on organizing your news feeds please pass them on.

In the next few days I’ll pass on some of my favorite sites to visit for information on photography, Drupal and other subjects. If you have any sites to add or suggest please let me know in the comment section or contact me. If you have an interest in seeing my finished collection of feeds let me know.